Romashov went up and embraced her without uttering a word.
Shurochka was breathing heavily and in gasps.
Her warm breath often met Romashov’s cheeks and lips, and he felt beneath his hand her heart’s violent throbs.
“Let’s sit here,” whispered Shurochka.
She sank down on the grass, and began with both hands to arrange her hair at the back.
Romashov laid himself at her feet, but, as the ground just there sloped downwards, he saw only the soft and delicate outlines of her neck and chin.
Suddenly she said to him in a low, trembling voice—
“Romochka, are you happy?”
“Yes—happy,” he answered.
Then, after reviewing in his mind, for an instant, all the events of that day, he repeated fervently:
“Oh, yes—so happy, but tell me why you are to-day so, so?...”
“So? What do you mean?”
She bent lower towards him, gazed into his eyes, and all her lovely countenance was for once visible to Romashov.
“Wonderful, divine Shurochka, you have never been so beautiful as now.
There is something about you that sings and shines—something new and mysterious which I cannot understand. But, Alexandra Petrovna, don’t be angry now at the question. Are you not afraid that some one may come?”
She smiled without speaking, and that soft, low, caressing laugh aroused in Romashov’s heart a tremor of ineffable bliss.
“My dearest Romochka—my good, faint-hearted, simple, timorous Romochka—have I not already told you that this day is ours?
Think only of that, Romochka.
Do you know why I am so brave and reckless to-day?
No, you do not know the reason.
Well, it’s because I am in love with you to-day—nothing else.
No, no—don’t, please, get any false notions into your head. To-morrow it will have passed.”
Romashov tried to take her in his arms.
“Alexandra Petrovna—Shurochka—Sascha,” he moaned beseechingly.
“Don’t call me Shurochka—do you hear? I don’t like it.
Anything but that. By the way,” she stopped abruptly as if considering something, “what a charming name you have—Georgi.
It’s much prettier than Yuri—oh, much, much, much prettier. Georgi,” she pronounced the name slowly with an accent on each syllable as though it afforded her delight to listen to the sound of every letter in the word.
“Yes, there is a proud ring about that name.”
“Oh, my beloved,” Romashov exclaimed, interrupting her with passionate fervour.
“Wait and listen.
I dreamt of you last night—a wonderful, enchanting dream.
I dreamt we were dancing together in a very remarkable room.
Oh, I should at any time recognize that room in its minutest details.
It was lighted by a red lamp that shed its radiance on handsome rugs, a bright new cottage piano, and two windows with drawn red curtains. All within was red.
An invisible orchestra played, we danced close-folded in each other’s arms. No, no. It’s only in dreams that one can come so intoxicatingly close to the object of one’s love.
Our feet did not touch the floor; we hovered in the air in quicker and quicker circles, and this ineffably delightful enchantment lasted so very, very long. Listen, Romochka, do you ever fly in your dreams?”
Romashov did not answer immediately.
He was in an exquisitely beautiful world of wonders, at the same time magic and real.
And was not all this then merely a dream, a fairy tale? This warm, intoxicating spring night; these dark, silent, listening trees; this rare, beautiful, white-clad woman beside him.
He only succeeded, after a violent effort of will, in coming back to consciousness and reality.
“Yes, sometimes, but, with every passing year my flight gets weaker and lower.
When I was a child, I used to fly as high as the ceiling, and how funny it seemed to me to look down on the people on the floor.
They walked with their feet up, and tried in vain to reach me with the long broom.
I flew off, mocking them with my exultant laughter.
But now the force in my wings is broken,” added Romashov, with a sigh.
“I flap my wings about for a few strokes, and then fall flop on the floor.”
Shurochka sank into a semi-recumbent position, with her elbow resting on the ground and her head resting in the palm of her hand.
After a few moments’ silence she continued in an absent tone—
“This morning, when I awoke, a mad desire came over me to meet you.
So intense was my longing that I do not know what would have happened if you had not come.